


thrown off your circadian rhythm

by Anonymous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Holding Hands, Insomnia, Intimacy, Jigsaw Puzzles, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Not Beta Read, POV Miya Atsumu, Pro Volleyball Player Miya Atsumu, Pro Volleyball Player Sakusa Kiyoomi, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Timeskip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:35:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29874054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: After a painful loss, Miya Atsumu grapples with its aftermath when sleep begins to persistently elude him. He is, however, able to find a companion during these obscure hours of the day in Sakusa Kiyoomi who, for reasons of his own, also suffers from sleeplessness.////author will be adding more tags as the fic goes on, but for safety purposes, the author has chosen to tag the fic as rated M.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

Atsumu knows that he's the one who took after their mother. A remark that may come off as ridiculous once you take into account that his only other sibling is a literal twin brother who beholds strikingly identical features. But putting aside the monozygotic reality of their conception, between him and his brother, Atsumu was the one to have developed the same kind of brown eyes as their mother. Browns that resemble the color of steeped tea when the light hits them at an angle, but nearly black in the shade or during an overcast.

His hair is also brown albeit a shade darker, and as a result it had end up becoming the butt of his brother's childish jokes by referring to it as the color of wet dirt. But his hair was the same brown as his mother's whose own tresses were long and always appeared straight and neat no matter the occasion. And so it was a shame when they had begun to fall away in clumps and their mother, who had tired of seeing the tufts of brown entangled between her fingers after she would run it through what little remained on her head, had eventually asked their father to shave every bit of it off. 

"It'll grow back," she had assured them at dinner that evening. Atsumu had kept his gaze on her eyes. They were the only shades of brown left after all. The only part of him on their mother that had continued to persist.

When she had finally left them, Atsumu had been somewhere else. It had been the clattering of his phone by his bedside table that had roused him from his sleep, and on the other end had been his brother. Shaky breaths that managed to stutter out two words: 'mom ICU'. 

It had been a few minutes too late when Atsumu had arrived at the hospital, a few minutes too late to see the browns of her eyes go out like the very rest of her. In some way, Atsumu had been grateful to have missed that moment, that moment of helplessness that came with witnessing every last bit of you die with the parent who birthed and raised you.

Atsumu has never seen or heard their father cry. He knows he probably did so a few times even when their mother was still alive. _Especially_ when she was alive and in the throes of her illness and increasingly complicated treatments. Atsumu used to think their father had concealed his misery from him and Osamu because he didn't want his children to feel demoralized or worse, be even further traumatized by the entire ordeal. After all, what could be more depressing than having one parent be ravaged by a terminal illness? The other parent wallowing in uninhibited sorrow and putting it on display, of course. But as Atsumu sits stiffly in his itchy suit, he realizes that their father has not stopped crying since the doctor had declared their mother gone. He had only paused in intervals for the sake of momentary courtesy during the wake arrangements (which in the end was mostly handled by their aunt and grandmother).

It dawns on Atsumu that their father had maintained composure all this time for their mother's sake, their mother who loved laughter more than anyone Atsumu knows. That was another thing he got from their mother. Now he's not sure when he can laugh with earnestness again.

As the rest of the wake blends into one giant haze of tears, obligingly uttered condolences, and a permeating smell of incense, Atsumu would tug occasionally at the crisp collar of his suit. He can't wait to return to Osaka.

__________________________

There was a time when Atsumu was thirteen when he had gotten the sense that his classmates had been exchanging whispers about him. It had been on the day after he was sent home because of a school yard kerfuffle he had gotten caught up in with some boys from the other class. The rumor mill had churned out delinquency assumptions and 'anger management issues' among other things. Atsumu had never bothered clearing any of it up. He didn't want to tell anyone that the other boys had been bullying his twin. Osamu made him promise not to tell after all.

Atsumu feels the same way he did when he was just a budding adolescent once he walks inside their Black Jackals locker room. The side glances and the abruptly muted conversations, albeit not malicious considering the totally contrasting circumstances, are still rather familiar. 

Of course Bokuto approaches him first, the unwavering kindness of his eyes present even in the midst of their heated matches on court.

"We're so sorry for your loss," he tells Atsumu whose knee-jerk reaction lately to the words 'sorry' 'condolences', and 'for your loss' has been to shrug and give the messenger a distinctive tight-lipped half-grin. It's been effective so far and he's pleased that Bokuto catches his drift (or so Atsumu assumes) when he nods and pats Atsumu on the back before walking back to his locker.

Atsumu eventually dumps his duffle bag on one of the benches by his own locker and he does a small stretch followed by a shoulder roll before addressing no one in particular in the room. "So what did I miss while I was gone?" 

"Well, the kids that got scouted came for the mandatory try-outs," Meian answers him. Their captain is barely in his thirties, but has taken to addressing anyone three years younger than him as 'kids' for some reason. 

"Anyone particularly interesting?"

"Oh!" Bokuto's ecstatic demeanor resounds in his mono-syllabic exclamation. "There was _someone_ Tsum-Tsum probably knows!"

"Someone I know?" Atsumu pauses halfway through changing so he can raise an eyebrow at Bokuto.

"Yeah! I'm pretty sure you know him.”

"Funny," Inunaki butts in. "I don't remember anyone from Inarizaki High during the try-outs. That's where you went to high school right, Miya?"

"That guy’s not from Inarizaki!" Bokuto says. "He's from Tokyo. Tsum-Tsum's team went up against him and his team during the Interhigh finals once!"

Atsumu goes through the memorial archives of his mind, shuffling through the ones which have not been repressed or completely erased. Eventually he locates a specific memory from 2012. A sixteen year-old Atsumu who had travelled all the way to Tokyo for the Interhigh Nationals, the weight of their humble prefecture's expectations on their team's shoulders after they've obtained the elusive spot in the finals against a powerhouse team from the city. They had only nabbed silver in the end, but Atsumu will never forget that match.

"I didn't know MSBY was scouting someone from Itachiyama," Atsumu says. 

Bokuto bounds over to him, the subdued version of himself from earlier already long gone, and strangely Atsumu finds this more comforting. 

"He went to Keio, Tsum-Tsum! Look." Then Bokuto lets him peek at his phone, the screen showing a portion of an article covering the most sought after collegiate players of the season. Beside the chunks of text is a dynamic shot of someone in Keio's deep cobalt blue uniform, the image capturing the perfect lines of the spiker's form just seconds away from an attack.

It's a form Atsumu had seen before, had seen first when he was sixteen in Tokyo and their team had been engaged in a relentless tug-of-war in their respective desperate bids to scramble for the match point. But it had been this attack—this form—that had inched the other team further away and that much closer to gold.

"Sakusa Kiyoomi."

"Yes! Kiyoomi-kun!" Bokuto says. "Our team played against them during the qualifiers a couple of times back then too. But now it looks like I'm gonna be teammates with Kiyoomi-kun!"

"We don't know that yet though," Meian points out. "That Sakusa kid probably got scouted by a bunch of other teams, like the Adlers for one. He might not even choose this team."

Barnes laughs, full and hearty. Another unlikely fragment of comfort Atsumu didn't realize he had been anticipating since his return.

"Are you that lacking in confidence in the Jackals, Shugo? We're a damn good team too!" 

Meian tries to defend his earlier statement, saying that he had meant to imply that the Adlers was ideal for Sakusa Kiyoomi in terms of location. However, the rest of the team winds up teasing him with Barnes leading the charge.

"Be careful, Shugo, or we'll replace you with Koutaro here!"

The team laughs and Atsumu pushes out a laugh too which he allows to drown in the cacophony of other noises, sinking and sinking to the very bottom until he's unsure of how his own laugh sounds like to his ears. 

__________________________

When you’re a ten year-old boy and more keenly aware than anyone what ten year-old boys should or should not be, you come to foster resentment over your failure to meet these very distinct standards. Unspoken and unwritten rules of pre-pubescenthood that are as equally burdensome as they are liberating.

Atsumu had been ten once and had whined at his mother about how the other ten year-old boys would tease him.

"I don't like it when they call me a pretty boy!" Atsumu would bemoan. And to drive home his point even further, he would jut out his lower lip and clench his jaw, all in thoroughly exaggerated extents so he could be the kind of ten year-old boy that played by the rules.

His mother had always found these instances of petulance amusing and in hindsight they were. Atsumu and his brother Osamu were splitting images of each other, but it had always been just Atsumu who had run to their mother to denounce the accusatory jabs of his peers. _Too pretty for a boy. Just a pretty boy_. Atsumu hated each comment with fervor.

“Tell me,” his mother would always begin. “Do you think dad is ugly?”

“No,” he would murmur in response. 

“Dad is handsome, right? He’s handsome and pretty and beautiful just like you and your brother.” She would pull together these compliments in that same exact order every single time. Handsome, pretty, and beautiful. There was probably no logical reasoning for this, no inherent hierarchy among these words to warrant their specific arrangement. But to Atsumu, it had always felt right to hear his mother utter it in that sequence. Handsome, pretty, and beautiful. 

“You looking the way you look will never make you any less than what you do or what you can be. You are handsome, pretty, and beautiful. But Atsumu is also strong and brave and a good brother to Osamu. And a good son to me and dad.” And at this juncture, his mother would smile at him and pat him on the head. “And whoever said boys can’t be pretty? You can be pretty, Atsumu and you can find other boys pretty too if you want.” 

He dreams of his mother that night. It was bound to happen eventually, he thinks after he rouses awake. It wasn’t the kind of dream that was dense and left him feeling confused and worn out. Atsumu simply dreamt of a time when he was ten and armed with a bundle of complaints to pour out to his mother about all the allegedly unfair remarks the other neighborhood kids had said about him. 

The only strange part about his dream was how his mother’s voice had faded as she talked. So gradual and quite easy to miss had it not been for the fact that when his mother started to say _you can be pretty, Atsumu,_ it came out softer. Weaker. Until nothing came out of her moving mouth. 

When Atsumu checks his phone, it’s a little over two in the morning, and sadly sleep doesn’t come to greet him after an obligatory series of tosses and turns. He checks his phone again and groans to find that daybreak is still far from reach. There could have been a plethora of things Atsumu could have done to recalibrate the chemical balance in his brain so that when he attempts to invite sleep a second time, it would answer and let itself in. Yet what Atsumu does instead is push himself out of bed and he washes his face (a counterproductive move) and throws on a jacket, then he slips his socked feet in a pair of slides before walking outside and closing the door of his tiny apartment behind him. 

The brightness of the convenience store lights makes Atsumu squint upon entry and after an aimless stroll down one aisle, he spots a box of instant curry mix and plucks it from the rack without a second thought. His feet, however, refuse to directly steer him towards the register and he trudges from one aisle to the next until he sees someone crouched low before one of the racks, scrutinizing the assortment of detergent on display. Atsumu thought he was the only customer present at such an hour. It turns out someone else was in here (apart from the unfortunate part-timer working the register) with him. 

This person eventually rises from his haunches, turning slightly so that Atsumu can have partial access to his features. And while the initial facade of him—tall, hunched, the halo of curls on his head and the mask that covers half his face—fails to immediately register in Atsumu’s brain, it becomes a cause for both surprise and perplexity when Atsumu finally does come to process who this person is that's standing in front of him.

“Sakusa Kiyoomi? From Itachiyama High?”

And to confirm Atsumu’s speculations, the person’s eyes widen, but narrows almost instantly when he too probably realizes who Atsumu is (at least, Atsumu thinks he’s significant enough to be remembered by a high school rival years later). 

“What are _you_ doing here?” Kiyoomi asks him, and by that alone Atsumu thinks he _probably is_ significant enough to be remembered by a high school rival. 

“I was going to ask you that first considering _you’re_ in the wrong city,” Atsumu says. 

“How am I in the wrong city?”

Atsumu’s eyes wander from the tips of Kiyoomi’s shoes until it lands on the two pronounced black dots on his forehead. “You’re okay, right? Like in the head?”

“I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re implying.” The reply comes off as rigid as his exterior. “I live here now.”

“Since when?”

“Since I signed with the Black Jackals?” There’s a certain inflection that trails after his statement and Atsumu knows that it’s an implication that as a member of the team, he should have been in some way made privy to any new members joining the pack. And Atsumu’s subsequent bewildered expression perhaps only reinforces Kiyoomi’s guess that Atsumu has been clueless about it all along.

“Oh,” was all Atsumu could muster.

“So what are you _actually_ doing here?” Then Kiyoomi’s gaze lands on the box of curry mix in his hand. “Because I don’t think you’re really craving for curry at two a.m.”

At any other given moment, Atsumu’s outright defiance would have been his fallback response. But there’s an imperceptible exhaustion to him that’s willing to put that particular demeanor of his on hold. For now, at least. 

“Can’t sleep,” Atsumu shrugs. Then he folds his arms across his chest, less graceful than intended due to the curry mix in his hand. “ _And you_? Because I don’t think you’re actually doing laundry at two a.m.”

“And what if I say I am?”

“Then I’d say that’s a hell of a weird time to be doing your laundry.”

The pause that follows after has Atsumu thinking that maybe Kiyoomi has taken personal offense to his brash comment and so his more rational mind scrambles to string together an apology befitting of this peculiar chance-encounter, its oddity amplified by the fact that it’s literally the wee hours of the night and that the last time they had crossed paths was when they were both teenagers and Atsumu’s mother was still alive and—

“I also can’t sleep,” Kiyoomi confesses. “So I figured I should just do laundry. Which means _yes_ , I am actually going to do my laundry once I get home.” 

Atsumu doesn’t say anything else and they both keep to themselves while they bring their respective items over to the register. It’s when they’ve both finally stepped out of the convenience store when Atsumu turns around to face Kiyoomi before they go their separate ways.

“Welcome to the team, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“You better play well or I won’t be tossing to you.”

“I literally beat your ass at nationals in case you forgot.”

Atsumu couldn’t contain the smile that makes its way to his lips. “I would never forget. That’s why I worked on getting better.”

“I’m looking forward to it then,” Kiyoomi says and this time, it hardly registers as a taunt, sounding _more sincere_ instead.

“Good night, Kiyoomi-kun.”

“Good _morning_ , Miya.”

They eventually walk away from each other, their paths diverging at an hour when they have unwittingly converged after so many years. Whether any of this means anything is beyond Atsumu. After all, he’s learned more than anyone to stop attaching any sort of reason or meaning to the inner-workings of the universe. Things happen because they just happen. Atsumu walks back home believing that meeting Kiyoomi again was just another thing that happened. 


	2. Chapter 2

Coach Foster introduces Kiyoomi to the team with the same kind of exuberance as when he had first introduced Atsumu when he too had been just a rookie. It makes Atsumu question whether their coach would ever run out of excitable fuel, but then he recalls Inunaki's offhand remark one time in the locker room about how people around that particular age range are already settling between one of either temperamental extremes:  aggressively jolly or acutely grouchy. 

Inunaki’s hypothesis doesn’t seem too far-off, Atsumu had thought, considering that the once friendly uncle figure in their neighborhood would now only grumble out his greetings, his expression sour as if a perpetual rain cloud had been hung over his head. Atsumu would like to believe that their parents would have fallen under the former extreme. Sadly, circumstances had left them with no choice and Atsumu will never know if his mother would have ended up like Coach Foster or that uncle from the neighborhood. All he knows is precisely because of that, his father is now on his way to following that uncle, just mere footsteps away from being acutely grouchy. 

Kiyoomi is polite when he greets everyone on the team and it amuses Atsumu because he was anything but the night (rather, very early morning) before. Somehow it doesn’t lead to a sense of distaste on Atsumu’s part. Kiyoomi doesn’t really come off as two-faced, he thinks. Because even as he attempts to match their coach’s energy, it looks stiff and almost clumsy and Atsumu concludes that Kiyoomi really is just Kiyoomi through and through. 

They go through their usual warm-up routine and when everyone starts to pair off during stretches, Atsumu saunters to where Kiyoomi has sunk to the floor, folded over and already bending his wrists by pressing them down in uncomfortable angles.

“I see that you still have that weird thing going on,” Atsumu says. “I still remember seeing that up close at the youth camp for the first time and thinking  _ ah, no wonder his spikes are like that _ .”

Atsumu has always, to some extent, believed it to be easy to tell what Kiyoomi is feeling despite the obstinate existence of his face mask. He attributes that relative convenience to his brows which he thinks do quite a lot for the rest of his face. And right now, Atsumu can surmise his annoyance by the way those two thick dashes have begun to bunch together to almost meet in the middle, the lines that form in that vacant space completing his overall vexed countenance. 

“What do you want, Miya?”

“I just want to help my new teammate with his stretches,” he tells Kiyoomi with every hope that it hardly registers as disingenuous or jocular on Kiyoomi’s part. 

Much to Atsumu’s relief (and surprise), Kiyoomi doesn’t shoo him away and he instead does a tilt of his head that could have either been a nod or a barely-there shrug of resignation, and Atsumu walks over behind Kiyoomi and after warning the latter, he begins to push down on Kiyoomi’s back, gently at first to gauge his comfort levels until he feels he is allowed to exert more force.

“Congratulations by the way.” Atsumu pulls away a fraction of an inch only to lean forward again to push down on Kiyoomi’s back. “Heard they named you MVP in the collegiate league.”

“Thanks,” Kiyoomi answers him and Atsumu was certain that there was a split-second instance of hesitation just now before Kiyoomi murmured his gratitude. Perhaps Kiyoomi was using that small gap to assess Atsumu’s intentions which in his defense were nothing but pure. 

Either way, their recently accumulated interactions trigger a sense of nostalgia in Atsumu because while his conversations with Kiyoomi during his high school years had been few and sparse, Atsumu had always sensed a distinctive aura of camaraderie between them, and whether or not it had ever been reciprocal at any point was actually the least of Atsumu’s concerns. Because while Kiyoomi has always been reserved (as far as he can remember), he’s still able to be surprisingly responsive and for Atsumu, he simply appreciates it point blank to be able to participate again in this almost idiosyncratic back-and-forth since high school. 

They eventually finish warming up in time for when the shrill sound of the whistle cuts through the air, alerting them of any announcements the coach has to make.

“Let’s play a practice match!” Coach Foster booms. “I already divided you all into teams so please go and check the whiteboard over there.”

Atsumu easily spots the two kanji characters which comprise his full name. Kiyoomi’s name, on the other hand, was listed under the opposing team.

“Would you look at that, Miya. A reunion match.”

Atsumu clicks his tongue. “Just like old times.” 

“Just like old times,” Kiyoomi echoes.

__________________________

It turns out it really was just like old times when Atsumu’s team loses two out of three sets. Kiyoomi’s MVP title, much like his top ace designation from high school, wasn’t just for show. After all these years, it’s still exhilarating to be at the continuous mercy of Kiyoomi’s spikes and receives. It’s incredibly annoying, Atsumu thinks, but in a good way. The best way.

“You’re really horrible,” Atsumu tells Kiyoomi while in the midst of still catching his breath. “Downright horrible.”

“Are you insulting me?” Kiyoomi questions, but his apparent exhaustion drains the accusation of any bite.

“I was complimenting you.”

“Last time I checked, the word ‘horrible’ had a fairly negative connotation, Miya.”

“I was just doing reverse psychology.”

Kiyoomi gives him a wary glance. “That’s not even what reverse psychology means.” 

Whatever reverse psychology could actually mean feels so trivial in this moment, so minute compared to the sticky feel of sweat on Atsumu’s skin and the way his lungs clamor for air. The absence of the temporary escape afforded to him by a good night’s sleep has already been swiftly compensated for by a day on the court. Atsumu has somehow convinced himself that he could probably live with this arrangement.

__________________________

There’s definitely a hellish irony to this suspended state of sleeplessness, Atsumu thinks. The more effort he puts into getting himself to sleep, the more worn out he becomes, and for godforsaken reasons, sleep just winds up more elusive than ever. 

It’s hell. There’s no other way to describe it.

Perhaps the worst part of this situation are not the specific physical consequences, but more so the mental ones. Because once he stills in bed, the fight leaving his body, his thoughts start to go to places he would much prefer them to never venture to. He, however, doesn’t give them any chances to go anywhere further once instinct prompts him to remedy this restlessness with even more motion. Hence, for the second night in a row, Atsumu dons the same jacket as before, but has now replaced the slides with sneakers. A more comfortable option when you’re about to take a stroll around the neighborhood at two in the morning. 

For a solid minute and a half, Atsumu feels close to patting himself on the back for having finally found the answer to his dilemma. However, he quickly realizes that actively putting his motor skills to work is inadequate to overwhelm the reality of his solitude, and soon enough his thoughts are once again at the starting mark. Atsumu knows he should pull the brakes on this one quick, but the beginnings of frustration gnaw at him, chipping away at his patience and focus.

He curses, the volume regulated, but his throat starts to itch and the next ‘ _ fuck’ _ that lays in wait on his tongue is already threatening to be delivered in less subdued decibels. But before he’s about to lose all sense of rationality, he rounds a corner and sees someone on the swings of the neighborhood playground. The place surrounding his apartment complex isn’t particularly immune to the occasional late night drunk, but Atsumu realizes that this gangly man with the neatly swept curls and the two dark moles on his pale forehead isn’t some inebriated soul who’s now attempting to sober up at a children’s playground. 

“Hey,” Atsumu calls out. “That you, Kiyoomi-kun?”

Peering over his face mask are a pair of obscenely dark eyes.  _ Weary _ dark eyes. “Unfortunately,” he says to Atsumu.

Seeing the empty swing next to Kiyoomi, Atsumu takes quick strides over to the swing set and he takes the unoccupied one to Kiyoomi’s right. 

Atsumu starts to push off slowly with his feet, the rusty sound of the swing makes a high-pitched squeak of protest as it wobbles back and forth. “I’m going to make a wild guess and say you can’t sleep again.”

“And I’m also going to make a wild guess and say you’re outside at this hour not because you were just looking to get some fresh air.”

It  _ really is _ just like being in high school all over again, Atsumu thinks. And they’re attending the youth training camp and all they had to worry about was volleyball and homework and whether they had passed the coolness standards of high school, and somehow in this moment of reverie, a spark goes off in Atsumu’s head. The spark soon catches fire and it blooms into an open flame. Reckless and desperate.

“Do you wanna hang out like this?” Atsumu stokes the flame. “Like whenever we can’t sleep, we can just hang out instead?”

“As opposed to?”

“Being alone with your thoughts?” 

Atsumu notices it again—the split-second instance of hesitation that fills in the stillness after he has spoken.

He hears Kiyoomi sigh. “I hate to say it, but you’re right.”

“So is that a yes?"

"It's a yes."

"Cool." Atsumu feels relieved and elated and the burst of energy he gets from these emotions causes him to push himself off with more vigor until he's visibly swinging. Back and forth, back and forth. The air grows colder against the skin of his face with every rapid descent he makes.

"I think you should stop that," Kiyoomi reprimands him. "It's making too much noise."

"Let me just get it real high so I can jump off."

"And injure yourself?"

The squeaking is much louder than before and Atsumu witnesses something he has never witnessed at any prior occasion—a vague look of concern on Sakusa Kiyoomi's face. 

"I won't injure myself," Atsumu swears. "I won't."

Kiyoomi relents and he doesn't say anything else and Atsumu feels like he’s ready to take flight. He finally propels himself off the swings with all the hubris of an athlete and with all the foolhardiness of someone who’s just now accepted, well, whatever all of  _ this is _ . He manages to stick the landing but only upon impact, immediately losing his footing on the soft sand. An element he unfortunately failed to factor in when he assured Kiyoomi that he wasn’t going to injure himself. And so Atsumu makes a clumsy plop, tailbone sore (he’s definitely going to feel that tomorrow) and his hands, which caught most of his weight, begin to sting along his palms. 

“I’m okay.”

“No, you are not.” Atsumu hears the voice from behind him and its clarity despite its lowered modulation indicates that Kiyoomi is very close in proximity. He confirms this by tilting his head backwards and all there is to see is Kiyoomi staring down at him, the foggy glow of the streetlamp haloes the outline of his curls and he can sense its shadows casting on his pathetic figure, odd twists and curves that make him think of clouds during a full moon. 

Kiyoomi extends a hand and Atsumu takes it. It feels warm, he thinks as he’s being pulled to his feet. 

“Thanks.”

Their hands remain joined and Kiyoomi withdraws his a bit to inspect the damage on Atsumu’s palm. He gently runs a thumb along a scrape and Atsumu flinches. “Sorry. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

“I hate to say I told you so, Miya.”

Atsumu doesn’t know why he decides to lift his other hand, palm facing upward as well, and just like the one in Kiyoomi’s grasp, this one has suffered just as much. Atsumu doesn’t know why Kiyoomi takes the other hand and he doesn’t know why he lets Kiyoomi hold both of them, and why he continues to let Kiyoomi scrutinize the flecks of blood and torn flesh. 

“We have to clean these up.”

_ We. _

“Okay,” Atsumu complies, and they leave the playground and walk in silence to Kiyoomi’s apartment which is much closer than his place. 

The line between expectation and reality blurs completely once they arrive in the apartment, because just as Atsumu had briefly pictured, Kiyoomi’s place is remarkably neat, the kind of neat that Atsumu believes could only be attributed to a person like Sakusa Kiyoomi. Whether it was because of the very meager assortment of furniture or almost general lack of belongings, Atsumu still finds a definite solace in the precision of his hunch.

The apartment doesn’t really have a living area so Atsumu sits on one of the three dining table chairs available.

“Rinse it out with water first,” Kiyoomi tells him before he disappears into his bedroom. Atsumu obliges and he holds his hands under running water from Kiyoomi’s sink. Eventually, Kiyoomi returns while holding a rectangular box, white and clinical just like everything else in his apartment.

“I’ll do it myself,” Atsumu says quickly once Kiyoomi has set the box down in front of him. 

Kiyoomi shoots him a look then he scoffs before saying, “I’m not going to clean your wounds for you, Miya, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Heat rises to Atsumu’s cheeks. “Right. Of course.”

Again, there’s a pause. A hair’s width of hesitation. Then Kiyoomi opens his mouth to add, “Anyway I put in everything you might need there so just have at it.”

They proceed to operate in silence as Atsumu rummages through what is unmistakably a very well-stocked first aid kit. While he carefully takes out the gauze and antiseptic, he occasionally steals glances at Kiyoomi whose lingering stare nearly makes him fidget in his seat. To make matters worse, it seems that they’ve both inadvertently fallen into this trap of either having to attempt to make small talk (something Atsumu personally despises) or to simply wait things out until this very specific mood passes them like a wave before they can go back to casual banter. 

However, as Atsumu dabs at his cuts with the soaked gauze, he catches sight of Kiyoomi tugging at the end of his long-sleeve—fiddling with it to be more precise, and it’s an act that is so inconsequential by nature that by regarding it as a habit is what Atsumu should have done. But the silence starts to thicken and if none of them start talking soon, it will only put them both in a chokehold for the rest of the night (or morning). 

“You look like you have something to say.” It’s nonchalant and by focusing on a particularly long scrape, Atsumu hopes that he’s able to strike a balance between coaxing Kiyoomi to initiate any sort of conversation, but without it coming off as aggressive induction.

Kiyoomi lets go of the fabric of his sleeve then he clears his throat, and when his telltale signs of hesitation surface, the pause is no longer infinitesimal. Rather, it now drags itself unabashedly slow. The entire time, Atsumu simply basks in this shallow victory of realizing that his valiant efforts are actually bearing fruit. 

“I guess I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi begins. “About your mother, that is.” 

Now  _ that _ was something Atsumu did not expect. He stops dabbing at a spot near his thumb and he levels his line of sight with Kiyoomi’s. “How did you know about that?”

“Coach Foster told me the day I signed with the team.”

A wry laugh slips past Atsumu’s lips. “Was he warning you or something? That maybe I was going to act out at some point?”

Kiyoomi frowns. “No. That’s not what he said at all.”

“Then  _ what did _ he say?”

The frown dissipates, transforming instead to an expression that is more neutral if anything. “He said he was happy that a friend from your high school years has joined and is now your teammate.” 

The coach pities him, Atsumu thinks, and he could have said this out loud and he could have said it with a slightly contemptuous tone to emphasize his commitment to rejecting these continued offers of commiseration, which in his defense, he does so willingly not out of pride, but because Atsumu is simply  _ exhausted.  _ Unfortunately, his attempts to achieve peace are undermined by his body’s obstinate refusal to rest, and so all he is left with is a profound weariness in his bones. 

Atsumu slumps a bit in his seat before he resumes to dragging the gauze across his skin. “A friend huh?”

“That’s what he said.” Kiyoomi isn’t looking at him anymore, his eyes now downcast so he can fix his gaze on the table. “Did you ever think we were, though? Friends?”

“Yeah, I think so. Well more like friends-ish.”

Kiyoomi seems to find the terminology amusing because he chuckles. “What warrants the ‘ish’?”

“Remember when they always made it out like we were rivals?” Atsumu says, switching the gauze to his other hand so he can tend to the opposite palm this time. 

“Were we ever though?”

“I’d like to think we were.”

Atsumu likes to think they were because Atsumu likes to think that something right here, right now exists to anchor him to the past and so he says, “ A rival is supposed to be someone you’re equals with, right? Someone who’s good enough to stand toe to toe against you? I always thought you were good, Kiyoomi-kun. I still think you are.”

This time Kiyoomi laughs, but it’s so fleeting that it’s difficult to comprehend the exact sentiment behind it. “You’re really just indirectly boosting your own ego, aren’t you?”

A beat trails after the last word and Atsumu’s wondering if this hesitation will be just as prolonged as the last one. 

“But for the record, I always thought you were good too. I also still think that you are.”

A split-second, a hair’s width. If anything could be more impossibly smaller than those, it was this instance just now.

Atsumu could have made light of Kiyoomi’s earlier retort by saying that his ego didn’t need any boosting, but he finds himself welcoming the silence he had so painstakingly tried to stave off, and even he himself is confused by his own uncharacteristic response (or lack thereof). Even more startling is the small smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“So is this how this thing will go?” Kiyoomi asks him. “This ‘hanging out’ thing?”

He allows his smile to widen a smidge. “We’ll work on it as we go along.”

“I don’t like doing things unplanned.”

“I promise you that you’ll like it once we start having fun.”

“Tell me. How exactly can insomnia be fun, Miya?”

Atsumu examines the work he’s done on his hands and once he’s satisfied, he lifts his head to look at Kiyoomi. “We’ll make it fun. Trust me.”

_ Trust me. _

He had said those two words the very last time he had seen his mother, but this time in the present, Atsumu feels a little hopeful. Maybe, he thinks, those two words can mean something again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Again, I have no set schedule for updating so I apologize for that. Thank you again :)


	3. Chapter 3

Atsumu had left as intended after he had stuck the last band-aid on his skin. He and Kiyoomi had talked the entire time, and he had noticed how the pauses in between each question and each answer had lessened in frequency and in duration. On the other hand, what he had been less fully aware of was the increasingly meticulous manner in which he would peel off each band-aid as if he had imbibed the extreme tedium of the task. It had only sunk in when he had stepped foot outside to find that the sky’s obsidian hue had fully transitioned into a milky grey. His phone had shown him the time. Almost dawn.

Just as it had been the day prior, his body succumbs to a self-preservation mode thereby permitting Atsumu two hours of slumber which had been partially interrupted by the pummeling noise of early morning rain. In these moments of consciousness, his mind had drifted to his exchange with Kiyoomi, the imagery of it all hazy as if everything had just been a dream and that he had woken up to find that the events over the past week or so had been a byproduct of his suppressed anxieties which had manifested through a sadistic slew of nightmares. 

However, as his grogginess had yielded to clarity, his face would contort itself into a grimace as if swallowing a spoonful of reality had coated his tongue with an acrid taste. But these bitter notes had another flavor to it that nudged Atsumu to a sense of restrained optimism. Trust me, he had told Kiyoomi, and Kiyoomi's resounding silence had been a sufficient answer. Perhaps that was what tasted tolerable, Atsumu had briefly surmised. He had also hoped it would become more pronounced in due time.

__________________________

“Whoa what happened to that, Tsum-Tsum?”

The absence of any perfunctory greetings from Bokuto who jumps right into pointing out the smattering of band-aids on his palms becomes a cause for their captain to start towards Atsumu even as he was still in the middle of changing into his practice attire. 

“What happened?” Meian asks, finally tugging his dri-fit shirt all the way down. “Don’t tell me you overdid it with practicing your serves.” 

Their captain looks at Atsumu the way his father did when he was ten and his father had come running to their room to find him with a broken elbow after falling off their bunk bed. The expression was a cross between disappointment and parental concern, but instead of sharing the same feeling of guilt with his then ten year-old self, Atsumu could only find it comical that their captain continues to unconsciously grow into his paternal persona. 

“Don’t sweat it, Captain. I just fell and got a few scratches along the way, that’s all.”

It’s obvious to Atsumu, who has gotten used to two years of having Kita Shinsuke as a teammate in high school, that Meian has already stitched up a bullet point list of reminders for him to carry and for Atsumu to ideally take to heart. But Barnes’ overwhelmingly congenial voice welcomes the latest person to enter the locker room and everyone else joins in on the chorus which is an effective enough interruption to force their captain into downsizing his counsel.

“Keep your hands clean and be more careful next time. Okay?”

“You got it,” Atsumu says. Out of the left corner of his eye, he sees Kiyoomi already situating himself in front of his locker. He greets him. Kiyoomi returns it with a nod.

“You able to sleep?”

Kiyoomi is pulling off his anorak so his speech is a bit fussed when he replies. “Yeah. Forty minutes max.” Then while combing back his disheveled curls, he turns to Atsumu. “You?"

"Two hours."

"Lucky you," Kiyoomi responds, his sarcasm so artfully constructed that Atsumu becomes so easily impelled to return his style of impudence. So he gasps, exaggerated on purpose .

"Did I hear that correctly? After you told me last night that you're not the type to believe in luck?"

"You’ve misunderstood me," Kiyoomi corrects him, and whether Atsumu’s attempt at mockery has managed to irritate him at all, it doesn’t show on his face. "I said we shouldn't bet everything on luck, but by saying that, it doesn't mean I've diminished the role luck can still play overall."

Atsumu shoves a foot inside one of his volleyball shoes then he elevates it enough to ascertain that Kiyoomi’s area of periphery falls on the zig-zagging laces of his footwear. “See this, Kiyoomi-kun?" Then he takes the two ends of his shoelace. "I used to do this thing in middle school where I would cross my laces left over right. I did it because I thought it would give me luck."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"Well, one day I forgot to cross my laces that way," Atsumu begins. "But that day, I actually ended up playing the best game of my middle school career."

When Atsumu lifts his head, an unimpressed gaze meets his eyes. It's different when paired with the rest of Kiyoomi's face which has already been rid of his mask. His expression is not exactly one of judgment or displeasure, but because it is an overall rarity to catch a glimpse of what lies beyond the obstructive paraphernalia, it sends an imperceptible unease through Atsumu. It's not new. Definitely not new. But it feels new every single time.

"How is any of that relevant exactly?"

Atsumu shrugs. "I don't know. I guess I just wanted to show off my shoes."

Instantly his irreverent response earns him a particularly labored eye roll from Kiyoomi. Atsumu chuckles and Kiyoomi sighs as if it were the end of an excruciatingly long and tiresome day. Atsumu validates that sigh, his own tacit assent to this shared experience of having a dysfunctional body clock and the perils it has for its victims’ sense of time. 

Atsumu stays seated, determining the tightness of the way he’s laced up his shoes by rolling his ankles and wriggling his toes inside. The pair strapped already to his feet aren’t exactly worthwhile of any forthright bragging. They’re not new and definitely have not been scrubbed clean for some time, but Atsumu grins as he looks at them. “Just so you know, not everything has to make sense, Kiyoomi-kun.”

“I do  _ know _ ,” Kiyoomi tells him and he’s sitting down next to Atsumu. He shakes out one of the shoes he’s retrieved from his gym bag. “I know because you told me that last night and unlike you, I was actually paying attention.” 

“Damn, one-upped by Sakusa Kiyoomi again,” Atsumu tuts with nearly the same amount of overbearing drama as his gasp. 

Kiyoomi doesn’t come off as peeved by his theatrics, tying his shoelaces in a manner so meditative that Atsumu wonders if there’s anything Kiyoomi can’t do without such effortless deliberation. 

“So where’d you get them then?”

Atsumu quirks an eyebrow at him. “Get what?”

“Your shoes,” Kiyoomi says. “I admit, they’re a pretty good pair.”

Effortlessly deliberate, Atsumu thinks as the small grin reemerges. “My mom actually got them for me for my birthday.”

“She has excellent taste.”

The grin stretches by a negligible metric. “I know.”

__________________________

They’ve come to agree that Kiyoomi gets to decide on the activity of his choice during the first night. However, it was one that had been initially replete with suspicion from Kiyoomi.

“Why me?” he had asked while he rearranged the contents of his first-aid kit. Atsumu had quite frankly taken mild offense that Kiyoomi had been unable to trust him with the mere three items he had extracted from the box. 

“Because I already made the offer to hang out, so I thought it would just be common courtesy to let you be the one to choose what we do tomorrow.”

“And if I tell you that I just want to sit around and do nothing?”

“Then we sit around and do nothing,” Atsumu had said simply.

Turns out Kiyoomi had been bluffing as Atsumu partially expected. He thinks about how long it would probably take before he can keenly decipher between Kiyoomi’s brand of charades and his unnervingly blunt manner of relaying a thought or opinion. But knowing what he understands of Kiyoomi now, it might be easier said than done. For the meantime, at least.

“So we’re doing jigsaw puzzles for tonight?”

Kiyoomi nods as he ushers Atsumu to that very same dining table on which he sees a cardboard box that bears, of all images, the grand Osaka Castle. Something about it is so untoward that Atsumu could not resist regarding it hilariously.

“And I see that you’ve decided on the Osaka Castle,” he snickers. “I gotta say, you really do know how to keep someone on their toes, Kiyoomi-kun.” 

“Is there something wrong with choosing a jigsaw puzzle of the Osaka Castle?” Kiyoomi scarcely sounds defensive about it, and in that instance Atsumu concludes that even if he were to solve a puzzle of Tomioka Tessai’s paintings comprising of a hundred thousand pieces, it would be infinitely easier than attempting to figure out the mental machinations of one Sakusa Kiyoomi. 

“It’s fine,” Atsumu says. “It just wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s all.”

“Then  _ what were _ you expecting?”

Atsumu pulls out a chair and before taking his seat he sets his eyes on the gaudy graphic of the box’s cover design, during which he spots the Don Quijote tag that has yet to be removed. “Now that you asked, I’m not really sure.” 

Kiyoomi takes the seat from across him, lifting the chair to avoid it from scraping against the tiled floor. Atsumu makes a mental note to do the same next time. 

“Anyway, I thought a thousand pieces would be too easy,” Kiyoomi says while lifting the lid of the box. “So I got the two thousand-piece set instead.”

Atsumu suppresses the sardonic laugh that’s threatening to escape, and so he settles for the alternative which is a remark he would consider more impish than snide. “Wow, Kiyoomi-kun. That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Of course, because Kiyoomi wasn’t born yesterday, his brows become furrowed, but he doesn’t come up with any more verbal retaliations and instead he dips a hand inside the box to pick up a piece which he sets down on the table. 

“So how do we even go about this?” Atsumu asks because he has yet to discern if it would be appropriate to start aiding Kiyoomi by also plucking out a piece at a time. “I mean this really looks like something that would definitely need a plan of action.”

“I usually start with the edges, but lately I’ve been doing it from the bottom and then I just work my way to the top.” Kiyoomi takes out another piece and similar to all the other pieces that came before it, it’s in a deep teal shade. 

Atsumu peers at the picture that would ultimately be serving as their guide and it clicks when he notices that the strip across the lowest portion is actually the ditch water surrounding the castle which, due to the oversaturation of the whole image, has now taken on an unusual blue-green hue. Without any further instruction needed, Atsumu commences to comb through the pile for pieces that might make up the bottom part.

The next few minutes pass by in silence save for the clatter of puzzle pieces in the box as they paw through the dwindling mound. Unbeknownst to Atsumu, Kiyoomi has begun to slot one piece after the other and it is only when an apparent corner has been formed that Atsumu notices and subsequently pauses to convey his bewilderment.

“How are you so good at this?”

In so punctuating Atsumu’s inquiry, Kiyoomi pieces another two together before he links them with the rest of what he has so far completed. “I think you just get the hang of it after doing it a bunch of times.” 

Kiyoomi’s words coupled with the daunting disarray of Atsumu’s own disjointed pieces spurs him to a natural competitiveness and so he begins to spread them out, and even briefly puts himself in Kiyoomi’s shoes in an effort to see things from his perspective. However, the longer he eyes the aimless chaos, the quicker his frustration is jolted awake.

“Hey.”

Atsumu tilts his head up and he catches the steady calm of Kiyoomi’s expression. He swiftly becomes aware of how he’s been clenching and unclenching his jaw this entire time and so he laxes a bit, the tautness even in his shoulders beginning to unspool. 

“I’ve already done this part here,” Kiyoomi tells him as he runs his finger across a significant portion of the ditch water. “You do the other side.” 

His voice sounded flat, toeing the line between mindfulness and detachment which only serves to feed Atsumu’s vague impressions of him. Was this tactfulness calculated or is Kiyoomi simply so inherently adept to refined neutrality that even someone as proud as Atsumu is spared from suspecting any condescension? Whatever the true case may be, Kiyoomi clearly thinks nothing of it as he continues to connect one piece with another and eventually, Atsumu is able to do the same once he’s zeroed in on a more distinct part of the puzzle set. 

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly Atsumu’s mood improves after he successfully forms half of an entire corner, and so with this livelier stupor, he feels the need to jostle the dead air that seems to hang between them. 

“So you said you’ve done this a bunch of times before?”

“As an occasional hobby, yes.”

Atsumu hums. “But why jigsaw puzzles though specifically?”

Kiyoomi doesn't even cease, but his movements are not one of urgency as he works through the puzzle with an aberrantly composed demeanor. Then in the midst of his zen-like behavior he says, “I think I just really appreciate how solving jigsaw puzzles gives me the illusion of being able to piece back together a part of my life that I’ve felt like has fallen apart.”

It takes Atsumu an extended moment to let Kiyoomi’s words sink in and his flippant delivery, and so for the time being, he could only blink back at him and say, “Well, that was another thing I was  _ not expecting _ .”

It’s odd to be suddenly left in the wake of such a disarming confession especially since Atsumu has practically spent a decent fragment of their time in secret appraisal of Kiyoomi’s cognitive constitution. Thus when he hears Kiyoomi clear his throat, Atsumu braces himself for any more possibly surprising revelations. 

“I was joking,” Kiyoomi says. “It was a joke, Miya. I just really like puzzles. Plain and simple.”

Atsumu's postulation stands. There's no comprehending Sakusa Kiyoomi in one sitting.

"You do know jokes are supposed to be funny, Kiyoomi-kun."

"Technically,” Kiyoomi replies so unflinchingly that in an ironic twist, that’s when Atsumu belatedly grasps his humor. “But I think individual responses can be subjective though.”

Atsumu bites his bottom lip to keep from laughing.

“Although I’d be lying if I say that I completely disagree with my little puzzle spiel just now.”

“Really now?” was Atsumu’s nonplussed response. 

“I mean, don't you think it would be nice to be able to control every little thing in your life? Because in reality, we’re all really just born and expected to do the best with what happens. And if we’re a little lucky, then things go just a bit extra well than usual.” The entire time Kiyoomi had spoken so placidly that Atsumu once again finds himself questioning the degree of sincerity in those words. Could this be perhaps a gotcha-fooled-you-again stunt or a declaration in earnest?

Whichever his glib statement may be, Atsumu chooses to gaze at Kiyoomi who has effectively gotten so preoccupied with solving the puzzle set that it strangely endears him to witness Kiyoomi hunched over and cocking his head to the side on occasion. 

“You know what I think?” Atsumu says and Kiyoomi peeks at him from the curls that have fallen across his forehead. “I think that it’s pretty negative of you to have that kind of mindset.”

Kiyoomi’s reaction is so instantaneous that he scoffs even before Atsumu finishes speaking. “Don’t confuse realism with pessimism, Miya.” 

“So you consider yourself a realist?”

“You can say that.”

Atsumu leans over and when this gesture draws a wary look from Kiyoomi, Atsumu takes this opportunity to hold his gaze steady. “Realistically speaking, do you think what we’re doing —this agreement to waste time together— could be a solution to a problem?”

Kiyoomi narrows his eyes at him. “If I’m going to be honest, I think it’s a problem to a problem.”

“So a problemception?”

“A  _ what _ ?”

“Have you  _ not seen _ Inception?” Atsumu asks in disbelief.

“Umm, no?”

Atsumu is appalled and this time, he doesn’t feign his astonishment by virtue of willful exaggeration. “Alright it’s settled. We’re watching Inception tomorrow. We just  _ have to _ .” 

“Okay then,” is all Kiyoomi says and as if he couldn’t be further bothered by Atsumu’s impassioned reaction just now, he returns to the puzzle set, deftly picking up a piece to examine where it could possibly belong. Atsumu, however, is not ready to let this exchange crescendo at such a pointless peak.

“What you said just now, by the way. I don’t get it. Why did you say this thing is a problem to a problem?”

Kiyoomi sighs. Not a definitively exasperated one, but it’s not hollow either. “Depending on how this might go, it  _ could  _ just end up as a problem to a problem.”

Atsumu feels a tug at the corners of his mouth, and he takes it for this feeling akin to that of triumph, or at least an inkling of it. “So you admit to feeling just a bit optimistic?”

“I admit to being realistic,” Kiyoomi reiterates firmly.

A pregnant pause follows. Then Atsumu retracts to slump against the backrest of the chair. “Then why say yes to this at all if a part of your reality would only have you second-guessing every step of the way?”

“Well, you know what they say, ‘misery loves company’.”

It almost sounds like Kiyoomi was just reading the ingredient list of a pack of chips, but Atsumu’s sharpened receptiveness has made it so that he is able to latch on to that hint of somberness in his voice.

“I didn’t know you had anything to be miserable about,” Atsumu slowly says. 

Kiyoomi raises his head to look at him and in a voice so jarringly soft all of a sudden he says, “I’d like to think each person has their slow drip of miseries every now and then.”

Atsumu’s chest feels tight. “You know you're always welcome to talk to me about it. That is, only if you feel like it, Kiyoomi-kun.”

Even with a face mask preventing him from seeing the rest of Kiyoomi’s face, Atsumu could tell that for the first time that evening (or rather, early morning) Kiyoomi smiles. 

“Thank you.”

Atsumu returns his reserved grin. “No problem, Kiyoomi-kun.” 

They focus once more on the puzzle, and for a fleeting moment, Atsumu ponders on why Kiyoomi had felt compelled to hastily avert his eyes first after Atsumu had uttered his name. He brushes it aside eventually, thinking nothing of it in the end. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. My update schedule is erratic and makes no sense and I'm sorry for that. I hope you enjoy this new chapter. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading until the very end. I'm not sure how many chapters this fic will have, but I've already written a rough outline for it. I have no regular update dates so just expect whenever I guess (my personal life schedule can be rather unreliable). I will however promise to update so you can count on that at least. Thank you again.


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